Fires
by Lady GreyWolf
Summary: post-Breaking Dawn.. A block of 21 houses in Chicago are burned down and because of that she was unable to save anyone, Officer Nadia Forrest leaves the US. But when a certain Doctor Cullen moves in next door, Nadia has to face her past
1. Prologue

_**(set about ten years after Bella's transformation)**_

** PRE-STORY/SUM: While Nadia was on duty in a problematic area, a house caught fire. Except for that house, twenty others burned down. There were no survivors.**

** The traumatic experience made Nadia Forrest, one of the best female cops in the area, leave Chicago and move to Rothesay instead, the small town where she'd been born. Her parents, still living in the US, are desperate to make her come back, to make her get over the pain, but Nadia only draws away, not trusting the different doctors that are assigned to help her.**

** Until one day, when she's suddenly re-united with the doctor that treated her after a fall when she was only five years old. The man with a big secret…**

_After the rain_

_I could see you crying_

_Suffer the pain_

_Like a river drying_

_After the rain_

_You're hiding from the daylight_

_Deep in a groove_

_Only walls around you_

_Nowhere to move_

_The state I found you_

_Deep in a groove_

_Lonely in the cold night_

_You're not alone_

_You're not the only one who hurts_

_You're not alone_

_This is the moment of rebirth_

_I've seen your heartache_

_I feel the pain you hide inside_

_You're not alone_

_Come, let me hold you_

"_You're not alone" by BWO_

"Nadia, please", her mother said on the phone. "You've got to do something about it. I promise you, Doctor Garland is a wonderful person, he will help you, I promise."

"No", Nadia said, shaking her head. "I won't see him."

"Nadia, I beg you."

"Mum, just leave me alone", Nadia hissed. "I do not need any of your help; you do not know what it's like…"

"Of course we understand you, dear, we…"

She hung up the phone. It didn't hurt as much as it would've done before the accident; then she would've called back in a few moments and told her parents how sorry she was. But not now. Now she didn't want anyone near, it hurt her too much.

A slight knock on the door, but she didn't look up. It was probably the milk-man or someone else she didn't really care about.

Another knock, a soft voice speaking through the wood.

"Anybody home?"

She slowly looked up from her position in the couch. She didn't recognize the voice, and it had an American accent, on top of it all. Slowly, as if she was barely able to move her legs, she rose and walked out into the hallway. Through the window in the door she could see a beautiful woman, so beautiful that she had to stop. She smiled at her, a perfect smile. Her whole face looked perfect, to tell the truth.

Nadia slowly walked the last steps to the door and opened it. The woman still smiled.

"I'm Esme Cullen", she said. "I'm your new neighbour, together with my family."

Even though she'd been there for about three months now, she had had no idea that the big house closer to the wood was for sale. Her own house and that one were the only ones standing this far from the town itself; if you were in town you couldn't even see them thanks to the hills.

"Oh", she managed to say. Esme tilted her head, sending her caramel-coloured locks to whirl around her.

"You do not look too well", she said. Nadia looked away.

"Maybe not", she said shortly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, you look like you've been going through something terrible", Esme said comfortingly and placed the box she'd been carrying on the ground. Nadia almost growled at her; why did everyone have to be so concerned about her? It was her choice if she wanted to move on, right?

Esme surprised her by her next action.

"I will return another day instead, dear", she said. "It seems like now is not the best of times. If you need anything, feel free to come and visit us."

She smiled comfortingly, before graciously turning around and walking back to her house and her family. Nadia followed her as she walked the two hundred meters to the white, two-storey house. She noticed figures walking back and forth between the large garage and the door. She counted them to be five, except for Esme.

_Great_, she thought bitterly, _a big family next door. With my luck, I'll end up killing them too._


	2. Chapter 1

"Edward, I need you to do something for me", Esme said later that day. Her adopted son looked up, reading her mind so that she wouldn't have to utter the words herself. He twitched slightly.

"Esme, I can not do that", he said and shook his head, letting his bronze hair fly around him. His wife, Bella, looked up.

"What?" she asked. Esme looked uncomfortable.

"I need Edward to find out what is wrong with out neighbour", she said after a while. Bella wrinkled her forehead.

"Why?"

"She's suffering", Esme answered. "Whatever she's been through, it's something that still torments her."

"Maybe we should invite her?" Alice suggested, dancing down the stairs with Jasper close behind her. Jasper looked pained by the thought; he didn't like having people around who were tormented by something, as he was affected by that as well.

"I'm sure we'll find a way to help her", Alice continued. Edward growled.

"Alice has had a vision, she knows she'll win", he muttered. Bella grinned; she'd known her best friend would come up with something.

"She had the look on her face as if she'd lost someone close", Esme continued. Carlisle, her husband, chuckled softly as he appeared at her side.

"My helpless romantic wife", he said softly and kissed her cheek. Then he grew solemn again.

"But I believe that she has lost someone, even though that person might not have been someone she knew", he continued and pulled up a newspaper.

_Whole block burned down_ said the big, black letters.

"According to this article", Carlisle begun and sat down in his chair, crossing his legs as usual, "a block of twenty-one houses burned down in one night. The female police-officer Forrest was found close to the ruins, she'd tried to save people while alarming the fire department. She was the only one who survived the fires."

"Oh God", Bella whispered. "Oh God."

Carlisle pulled up a second paper from his bag. This one was written days later than the previous one.

"Here's another article", he said. "It tells about officer Forrest's resignation from the Chicago Police Department. According to the spokesman, she's blaming herself for the deaths of the people in the block and she's decided to retire, even though she's only twenty-three years old."

"Oh God", Bella continued to whisper. Carlisle nodded. It was visible that he was sorry for the officer while she was not there.

"She's going to need us, even though she can not find out about what we are", he said. The rest of his family nodded.

"I'll go over and invite her to dine with us", Alice said, dancing towards the door.

"_Dine_ with us?" Bella said doubtfully. Alice grinned.

"At least meet us all", she said, before she whirled out through the door. Jasper seemed torn between the need to follow his wife and stay away from the depressed creature further down the road. After a while, he sank down in the couch next to Bella.

"This is going to be tough", he muttered. In a regular family, no one would've been able to hear that silent whisper, but in this family of vegetarian vampires, that was a piece of cake.

It was the second time that someone knocked on her door this evening. Was it Esme again? Sighing, Nadia rose from her chair in the kitchen and walked out to the door.

The person outside the door was both shorter and younger, but just as beautiful as Esme, in her own way. Nadia felt like a giant when she opened the door to the pixie-like girl with her spiky, black hair.

"Hi there", she said in a singing voice. Nadia nodded.

"We were just wondering if you would like to dine with us", she said. Nadia shook her head.

"I have already eaten", she answered.

"Well, that's ok, we ate on the way here, so we're not too hungry either", the girl continued. "We just want to get to know you a bit better, as we're going to be neighbours."

She smiled again. Nadia felt like growling at her, but just couldn't find the strength to do so.

"Alright then", she muttered. The girl smiled even wider as they walked outside and Nadia locked the door.

"Great!" she said and whirled in front of the older girl on the road. "I'm Alice, by the way. What's your name?"

"Nadia", Nadia answered shortly, putting her hands in her pockets. Alice continued to whirl in front of her until they reached the bigger house. Esme was waiting for them inside of the door.

"I'm sorry if you didn't want to come here, Alice really wanted you to, and it's quite hard to stop her", she excused. Nadia shuddered.

"It doesn't matter", she said in a low voice. Esme smiled her comforting smile and led her into the large living-room. There the rest of the family was waiting for her. All of them, Tanya noticed, look indescribably beautiful.

"These are my adopted children", Esme said. "Edward and Bella, and Alice and Jasper."

Nadia tried to smile at the four teenagers, but she doubted that it turned into anything but a grimace. Esme turned her around slightly so that she could face the man in the chair. He had honey-blond hair and was tall and muscular. He smiled gently at her, his deep golden eyes shimmering in the light from the lamps. _No way_, Nadia thought as she stared at him.

"This is my husband, Carlisle", Esme said. She'd hardly finished the sentence before Nadia fell to the floor.

Carlisle rose quickly and caught her right before her head hit the ground.

"What happened?" Esme asked, terrified.

"I'm not sure", Carlisle said and started to check the vital signs on the unconscious girl.

"I think she recognized you", Edward said. "At least, the last thing she thought was 'no way'."

Carlisle didn't answer, he studied the face of the girl and nodded slowly.

"I'll take her upstairs and watch over her, I think that we need to talk", he said. The others nodded and watched as their leader gracefully swooped the unconscious girl into his arms and speeded up the stairs, into one of the rooms.


	3. Chapter 2

_(18 years earlier)_

_ "Mum, look at me!"_

_ "Oh God, Nadia, get down from there! What if you fall down and hurt yourself?"_

_ Nadia laughed and climbed higher up the rock. She'd figured that she'd be able to see quite far from the top of it. Also, she wanted to show her brothers that she was just as good as they were._

_ Mike was already up there. He smiled._

_ "It's okay, mum!" he called. "Our sis is a little fighter, remember?"_

_ "But she's only five years old!" their mother called. "Oh God, please…"_

_ "Mum, look!" Nadia said with a grin and picked a flower from the rock. "Isn't it…"_

_ She'd wanted to say 'beautiful', but before she was able to finish the sentence she lost hold of the cliff and fell backwards. Mike reach for her from the top, her other brother Ty tried to catch her as she passed him. Her mother screamed. She wasn't sure if she was screaming as well, she was more surprised than scared. It wasn't exactly dangerous to fall, she'd done it before._

_ Then it all went black._

_ She woke up at the local hospital, blinking at the lights in the roof. Her head ached, which was annoying. She didn't want to lay down in a bed staring at the roof all day, but the pain in her head told her that she shouldn't move. That was what her mother usually said anyway; if your head ached, you should lay still._

_ The door to the room opened and she turned her head slightly to see who it was. A young man, not much older than Ty (who was eighteen) anyway, walked through the door. He smiled at her, his golden eyes shimmering in the light from the lamps._

_ "Hello there, Nadia", he said. He was a doctor, she could tell by his long white coat and the stethoscope that was hanging around his neck._

_ "How are you today?" he asked and sat down on her bed._

_ "My head ache", Nadia answered. "I fell, didn't I?"_

_ "Yes", he said, still smiling. "You were lucky that you didn't get any worse injuries."_

_ "Can I go home soon?" she asked._

_ "You have to stay here for a couple of days, but you should be just fine", he answered, looking through his papers. A ray of sunlight appeared through the opening between the curtains. Nadia thought it was the first glimpse of sun that she'd seen while they were on this hiking-trip in Forks and followed it with a child's interest. She noticed that it hit the doctor's hand and his skin, somehow, seemed to reflect it in a thousand diamonds. He removed his hand from the sun, quicker than anyone she'd seen moving their hand before. Then he looked at her. He noticed that she'd noticed what had happened, she had seen it all. He smiled his gentle smile at her._

_ "Well, Nadia, I guess I should let your family see you, if you feel alright", he said and rose. She nodded; she was eager to see her family again. The doctor moved out of the room and the door closed for a moment, before her family hurried inside and sat down around her bed._

_ During the following days, there was always another doctor coming to check on her instead of the one with the diamond-hand._

Nadia groaned and opened her eyes. She was in an unfamiliar room, in a large bed and it was dark outside the windows. She pulled herself up in a sitting position and noticed that a shadow sat beside her bed. Immediately she reached out for the lamp, but couldn't find it. Instead it was the shadow of the man who lit the small lamp beside her bed.

They sat in silence for a while, just staring at one another.

"You can not be…" she whispered.

"Hello there, Nadia", he said, in exactly the same tone that he'd said it eighteen years ago. She gasped.

"What… who are you?" she hissed. "You can not be the same man, I mean… it's _eighteen_ years ago!"

He smiled sadly.

"I am, Nadia", he said. "I am the doctor you met after your fall in Forks."

"But… you look the same", she said, confused. "Shouldn't you… I mean, you should be looking older by now!"

He smiled.

"Still here I am, frozen forever as twenty-three", he said. She gasped.

"No way, such things do not exist!"

He didn't answer her; he just kept looking at her, studying her face. Then he looked away.

"I'm sorry", he said. She blinked.

"What? Oh God, no way… you can not…"

She fell silent and looked away, her hands grasping the sheet on the bed.

"If you're what I think that you are, are you able to kill me?" she said after a while. The man looked surprised.

"Kill you?"

She nodded solemnly.

"Nadia, I will not", he said and rose with speed and grace. "I'm a doctor, remember."

But he didn't walk out of the room, he stayed next to her bed, still looking at her. She looked at him, pleadingly and full of guilt.

"Please", she whispered, pushing back her hair so that her throat was completely bare. "Do it, I beg you."

He slowly started to lean so that he stood over her and she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. A cold hand was placed on the side of her neck, stroking her skin carefully, before he placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. She shivered.

"I will not kill you", he whispered in her ear. "I will be here for you, I will help you."

A single tear fell down from her eye and he gently removed it with his thumb.

"It's alright", he whispered as she drew a shivering breath. "Everything will be just fine."

And she started to cry. Everything that she'd kept inside since the fire burst out at once, one giant flood of salt water. And he allowed her to cry; he allowed her to destroy his clothes with her tears as she leaned against his chest. He held his arms around her and gently rocked her back and forth, murmuring an old lullaby. She started to feel how tired she really was and with one, unsteady breath, she fell asleep.

He gently laid her down again and removed some of the tears still on her face. Then he rose. Esme opened the door and looked at her husband.

"How is she?" she asked, walking up to him. He sighed silently.

"She's in pain", he answered. "This will take time."

"She actually asked you to kill her?" Esme asked, her voice trembling. Carlisle nodded.

"We have to watch over her during the following weeks, never leave her alone. She's too breakable at the moment."

Esme nodded and placed a kiss on his cheek.

"You want to stay in here tonight?" she asked. He nodded slowly.

"We'll be downstairs", Esme said with a thin smile. He smiled back and kissed her on her lips, before she walked back out the door and he assumed his old position in the chair next to the bed.

**Author's note: reviews are luv! Honestly, they are my inspiration and my strength, so if you like the story and want to read more, please post a review!**


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